M&S will close 27 stores across Britain.

British high street retailer Marks & Spencer has announced the closure of 27 stores and the loss of 1,230 jobs across the UK.

The company will shut 25 of its 355 Simply Food stores as well as 2 of its regular outlets, resulting in 780 job losses. The remaining 450 jobs will be cut from the head office.

The announcement was made in the firm’s third quarter trading statement which reported a drop of 7.1% in UK like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to 27 December. General merchandise sales fell by 8.9% and a 5.2% drop in food sales was also noted.

M&S also warned that gross margins were expected to be significantly lower than last year as a result of increased discounting.

The retailer held two nationwide sale days prior to Christmas with prices slashed by 20%.

The reduction in costs for the company will also include capping the employees’ annual increases in the Marks & Spencer pension to 1% and there will also be changes made to early benefits for members who joined the scheme before 1996 to cut costs.

Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Marks & Spencer, said: “We are aware that the proposed changes […] will be difficult for those members of staff impacted, but given that we expect challenging economic conditions to continue for at least the next 12 months we believe we are taking the right action to maintain the strength of our business.”

There was also some positive news for the retailer as M&S has successfully maintained its market share for clothing with particularly strong results in the children’s and lingerie departments.

For a full list of store closures, visit: http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/press_releases/2009/Q3_store_closure